CHESTER — City council will not be considering a land development application at tonight’s council meeting made by a waste-to-energy incinerator that was recommended for denial earlier this month by the city’s planning commission, according to a city spokesperson.

Covanta’s Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility, located in the first block of Highland Avenue, is seeking permission to construct a 16,000-square-foot rail box transfer building and a 1,000-square-foot office building at its existing facility. The incinerator takes in 1.2 million tons of municipal trash each year. The trash is incinerated and the steam that results is used to generate about 80 megawatts of electricity.

The rail box building is needed because Covanta recently entered into a 20-year contract to bring as much as 500,000 tons of municipal garbage from New York City per year via rail. Trains would bring the waste to a transfer facility in Wilmington, Del., where the rail boxes would be taken from the train and placed on tractor-trailers. The trucks would then be driven to the Chester facility. The proposed building would allow for the rail boxes to be unloaded and emptied.

Covanta’s Vice President for Environmental Science and Community Affairs John G. Waffenschmidt said that the trash coming from New York City would replace other waste sources, and thus there would be no increase in the facility’s capacity or in the amount of truck traffic.

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Earlier this month, the city’s planning commission unanimously voted to recommend to city council that the application be denied, but didn’t cite any specific flaws in the plan.

“It really shouldn’t have happened this way,” Waffenschmidt said. “There is nothing wrong with the application. There was no reason for us not to be recommended for approval by the planning commission.”

About 100 residents packed the July 9 meeting of the planning commission, with many voicing their opposition to the proposed project and some even advocating for the closure of the incinerator. An environmental activist from Philadelphia claimed that asthma rates in Chester are much higher than the surrounding area and that the emissions from the Covanta facility are partly to blame.

The contract with New York City is for Covanta to take in 1 million tons of garbage per year, with the load being split between the Chester facility and another Covanta plant in Erie County. There are two 10-year extension options on the contract.

Waffenschmidt has stressed over the past month that Covanta is not seeking an increase in the amount of trash it is permitted to burn, only seeking to change the mode of transportation.

“It is a simple request to give us some infrastructure to change the mode by which the material is transported,” he said. “It is a very minor proposal which has been blown out of proportion by some interpretations as to what it entails.”

Wednesday evening’s meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in council chambers of Chester City Hall, 1 Fourth St.